Customer Reviews

Hugo Wolf: Lieder & Orchesterwerke [Box Set]

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Since Amazon seems a little sparse on details, here's what you get: 7 CDs, containing most of Wolf's lieder. Some of the lieder are not complete, since there is no soprano on the album. However, present in entirety are:

*Morike-Lieder

*Eichendorff-Lieder

*Goethe-Lieder

*Lieder Nach Verschiedenen Dichtern

Also included are 46 songs from the Italienisches Liederbuch, 44 songs from the Spanisches Liederbuch, 1955 recordings of some of the songs, and various orchestra works.

The quality of the performances are superb. Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau's voice is strong, beautiful, sensitive to the sentiments expressed in the poems, and very expressive (even humorous or bold and daring on some).

Gerald Moore is the perfect accompanist, very aware of what Dieskau is doing. The recordings, though from the '50s and '60s, are crystal clear and very good quality.

I probably needn't mention the beauty of Wolf's music, but it is truly wonderful. It is some of the best of the romantic lieder, and very varied and interesting.

For an album that has recieved so little attention from other reviewers, I am very astonished at how good this is. The value is great, too, when one realizes that 7 CDs are included! Highly recommended...

On the first six CDs of this seven-CD box set are recordings by Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau and Gerald Moore of all the songs of Hugo Wolf's maturity suitable for a man's voice.

On the seventh CD, there are recordings of four of Wolf's orchestral works. These are decent performances by the Radio Sinfonieorchester Stuttgart with Fischer-Dieskau in his role as a conductor, but they don't hold a fraction of the interest of the songs.

The set was obviously intended for people already familiar with the songs because there are no texts or translations provided - a serious obstacle for anyone coming to Hugo Wolf for the first time.

But let's be grateful for the incomparable riches provided. Here are studio recordings of 152 songs with 29 of them recorded twice - a total of 181 tracks. One hundred and fourteen recordings appear here on CD for the first time.

The songs were recorded from 1952 to 1960. No allowances need to be made for the quality of the recordings - the voice is thrillingly immediate - and as for the performances they are, as you would expect from the world's greatest lieder singer in his absolute prime, breathtaking. As for the songs themselves, they are among the very greatest of their kind - as ardent and spontaneous as those of Wolf's great predecessors Schubert and Schumann, but with an added dash of late Romantic astringency and nervousness.

This boxed set was compiled and released to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the death of Hugo Wolf. For lovers of his songs, it is the stuff of dreams.